In a special session of the California Legislature-by a vote of 8 to 4 after
less than an hour of debate-the Policy Committee extended the exemption for
a substance called methyl bromide. This is the first time that a governor
of California has ever called a special session so that poison may continue
to be applied in the state. This vote will have implications for untold numbers
of people.

Most importantly, notice the power of the Ethyl Corporation, the Great Lakes
Chemical Corporation, the two principal corporations supplying this poison.
Look at their power over a governor, over a legislature. This is a juggernaut.
Fifteen million pounds of methyl bromide are used in California-a big piece
of ozone depletion. These are real matters for a free people to deal with.

Methyl bromide is a colorless, odorless gas, a very deadly neurotoxin developed
as a weapon during World War II. After the war, the good scientists at the
University of California figured out a way to use it to kill bugs instead
of "enemies." It's used as a fumigant to clear the soil and destroy living
matter that would interfere with the production of a particular crop. But
it has other consequences for the applicator injecting the gas into the ground
in fields for grapes, for walnuts, for strawberries, for cut flowers and
it has consequences for people living nearby, and for the 800+ schools in
California, elementary and licensed daycare centers, within roughly a mile
where methyl bromide is injected into the soil The consequences can be FATAL!

Here's how this chemical affects you. It can affect your health if you live
near one of these fields. It can affect you if it's used to fumigate your
house because it's still used for that purpose. And it can affect you because
it's one of the most serious of ozone depleters. The size of ozone depletion
is significant, is growing, which means more ultraviolet radiation. The United
States is responsible for 40% of methyl bromide used worldwide, so we are
definite contributors to this depletion of the ozone layer. The state of
California-the strawberry growers, some of the grape growers and the cut
flower industry- is responsible for about 25 % of the United States' contribution
of methyl bromide to the rest of the world. We're not talking about something
trivial. Ozone depletion kills people. It causes cancer; it causes consequential
disruptions to the global environment and the food chain. It is so shocking
and so threatening that over a hundred nations of the world came together
in Montreal and signed a treaty to ban methyl bromide in order to protect
the stratospheric ozone layer. A couple of years later, because they did
not think it was tough enough, they even tightened it. This is a success
story. The chlorofluorocarbons are being cut back. Methyl bromide, one of
these ozone depleting gases, is supposed to be phased out after the year
2000.

The people producing this poison don't worry about the consequences. They've
got a strawberry crop; they've got an almond crop; they've got some grapes
to get out, they've got some cut flowers to put into the export market, they've
got to sell strawberries in Tokyo, so never mind that some farm workers can
be killed or some little children can be permanently brain-damaged, or that
melanoma is one of the fastest rising cancers not only in Australia but right
here in North America.

How is this danger treated? First of all, the context is in the political
arena. The pesticide makers and their allies have given over $400,000 in
the last three years to the state legislature in California, about $100,000
to Governor Pete Wilson, so that's already the conflict, the bias. These
are not judges; these are not human beings acting as thoughtful sensitive
people very much engaged with the consequences. They are going to buy an
extension for another year and a half. The lower house in California is
controlled by the Republicans and the bill will pass with virtually no notice,
no discussion, yet they're talking about lives; they're talking about the
ozone layer, the global environment affecting a lot of people. There's a
lot of fund-raising potential around this. They will follow orders and deliver
enough votes for a bipartisan commitment to environmental destruction and
an assault on human health, innocent children, school yards, homes-places
where real people are affected. They don't give a damn!

This is not a new issue. Back in 1984, a law was passed by the State of
California, signed by a conservative governor, that was aimed at preventing
birth defects and required certain toxicological tests to be undertaken regarding
various chemicals and pesticides. By 1991 the Great Lakes Chemical Company
and the Ethyl Corporation secured another extension to do more tests. That
extension expires in March of this year. They're not doing the tests because
they know those tests won't turn out pretty. The United States government
has labeled methyl bromide as a Class I neurotoxin. It doesn't get any more
lethal than that. We are not talking trivialities here. Ozone depletion kills
people, it causes cancer, untold consequential disruptions of the food chain
and the global environment.

What I see here is that these corporations aim first to take on California-that
had the earliest phase-out of this ozone depleting gas-and postpone it so
it never really becomes a prohibition. What action can you take? You don't
have to buy strawberries. You don't have to buy almonds. You don't have to
buy cut flowers. Forget the vote-these characters are bought and paid for-but
your dollar is still in your pocket until you exchange it for almonds or
grapes or strawberries. You can make a difference! There are alternatives.
There are organic strawberry growers, organic grape growers and there are
pesticides that are far less harmful than methyl bromide. There is where
we have power as consumers.

Each one of us can go to the grocery store today or tomorrow and say, " What's
on this stuff? Where does it come from?" Maybe you just concentrate on
strawberries. They seem to be the big offender. There is power! Put up a
little pressure. Go organic for a while. The road to political mobilization
is through your buying behavior. If we can make an impact there, start putting
pressure, we will change things. If enough complaints went into Lucky and
Safeway and the local grocery store, these farmers would switch real fast.

Here's a rundown on where methyl bromide is used: 25% goes for strawberries,
12% for cut flowers, 10% for grapes, 7% for almonds, and 7% for sweet potatoes.
Germany has banned this stuff. They grow a lot of strawberries. Holland grows
a lot of cut flowers, probably the world's biggest exporter. They banned
methyl bromide To me, this is a litmus test. If we can't handle our
responsibility in something this easy, how are we going to deal with the
larger issues affecting the environment? At worst, you're talking about a
slight reduction in strawberry consumption, in almond consumption, in the
sale of cut flowers, and some of this stuff is only needed to fumigate for
export, to get those strawberries over to Tokyo or Hong Kong. This is a matter
of survival to the farm worker, to the child living near the fields. That
raises the subject of the food co-op that we are working to create here in
the Oakland/Berkeley area. My vision of the co-op is that we make alliances
with specific farmers. It's a matter of being conscious of the food we eat
and purchase, of knowing the farmers, knowing the conditions, knowing where
it comes from, all collaborating together and being responsible for how we
are in the world.

The powers that be are conspiring against sustained-environment thinking,
analysis, and mobilized response. That is what I call the death of democracy.
Can we, as a species, as human beings, develop the consciousness of our impact
on those closest to us, on the larger environment itself? Our power to impact
has never been greater and yet our consciousness of that impact is very puny.
That is the gap that has to be closed-the wisdom gap. It is only out of that
insight and awareness that we will be able to live in a sustainable, harmonious,
moral, spiritual way and that's the question this story of methyl bromide
raises. It's not just one chemical. It's a whole way of life.

The nature of the corporation, under American law, is to make money for the
owners, irrespective of the impact on the employee, the community, or the
environment. That's the problem. The corporations, the law firms fronting
for them, the politicians they buy have progressively undermined responsive
legislation. The Republican Contract on America and Newt Gingrich and the
whole effort to weaken the Clean Air Act, to weaken the Delaney Clause
prohibiting cancer causing chemicals in our food, to weaken the Safe Drinking
Water Act, to undermine the right to sue a corporation-this effort recognizes
and responds to corporate pay-offs to your state, local and federal politicians.
And that Behemoth, that monster, that virus, is incompatible with a healthy
body politic or a free America. You've got to see through it if we're going
to save ourselves, our souls and our country.

Welcome to the New World Order. Right here at home there was a real milestone.
The World Trade Organization issued an order that parts of the Clean Air
Act that were enacted by the Congress and signed by the President into law
must be changed to suit the dirty processes and products that will be derived
from imports from Venezuela, Brazil and other member countries. The WTO was
created under the pet program of George Bush and Bill Clinton, namely GATT,
the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. The World Trade Organization
is part of the mechanism, the bureaucratic structure, of GATT.

Have you ever heard-since the war of l812-of a foreign power dictating to
the United States? That just happened! The sovereignty of America has just
been eroded in plain daylight by Clinton and the Congress, who take an oath
to the Constitution. Those criminals continue to destroy this country and
the world itself. I know that's strong, but I don't exaggerate. Here is what
Clinton said in September of 1994: "We need to pass GATT as quickly as we
can. The American people will be a winner. It will create hundreds of thousands
of high paying jobs over the next decade." The highest good now-higher than
religion, the family, the environment, and wage standards-is THE MOVEMENT
OF STUFF across international boundaries.

Sylvia Nassar's column in the December l993 New York Times, was headlined:
"GATT's Big Payoff for the U.S.: The Third World Promises to Become a Much
Larger Trading Partner." She writes: "The most long lasting benefit for the
U.S. . . . may be to encourage growth in many of the world's poor but aspiring
nations. That, contrary to the dire warnings of America's new isolationists
like Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot, would be good for most Americans too, say
most economists who focus on free trade and growth." I am not going to
deconstruct that language, but note the qualifiers in almost every phrase!
Then she goes on to quote Paul Krugman: "It is true that successful Third
World economies are competitors, but they also become bigger markets for
our products, and they are also suppliers of better and cheaper product to
our economy."

Notice the claim: the big payoff from GATT is going to help these poor people.
They are pandering and appealing to your liberal guilt if you are in that
privileged position of a lawyer or a professional embedded into the service
structure not yet challenged by foreign competition and cheaper labor. All
those poor people are going to be benefited by GATT! It is not just more
autos to Japan; it's more jobs in Indonesia, Mexico, China, in the maquiladoras;
it's laborers in Poland and Eastern Europe working for a couple of bucks
a day in crummy factories to replace that bloated American workforce that
has medical benefits and pensions and other forms of decency that have rigidified
the American labor market. Yes, this is a double pay-off: first, the economy
of Americans and then the poor people around the world. Notice, the claim
that these people supply better and cheaper products-that is the benefit.
Do you hear that? The Third World countries become bigger markets for our
products, and they are suppliers of better and cheaper products to our economy.
So why not just move all of America's business off-shore? We finally got
to the New World Order! The continuing drift toward tearing up the environment,
tearing up the Constitution, and increasing inequality is a direct consequence
of the leadership pattern that both parties are now engaging in. Do you believe
Clinton lied and Mickey Kantor lied and Bob Dole lied and the others that
voted for GATT lied when they said this law cannot invade or diminish our
sovereignty? If that is true, how come this foreign body, the WTO, is able
to order the Congress that represents us, "WE, THE PEOPLE," to do something
that we didn't tell the Congress to do?

It is not the end. It is the beginning. A new waiver allows Mexican truckdrivers
to drive their uninspected trucks all the way to the Oregon border, and they
are making a couple of bucks an hour. Watch out, American truck drivers:
You have just been sold out. You have been sold out by Feinstein and Boxer
and all the others that undercut you by voting for these large schemes with
this fuzzy internationalist feeling to them. You can drive across the border
now, and maquiladoras are popping up all along the border contrary to Mickey
Kantor's promise that NAFTA would put jobs all over Mexico and hire people
within the heartland of Mexico so they wouldn't have to come to the border
for employment. I am not only for sovereignty in the United States-I want
to see some sovereignty in California locally. If I don't want a nuclear
power plant, I can say no. If I don't want a toxic dump in a Chicano
neighborhood, I can say no. This whole dogma which says there shall be no
trade barriers is all part of a multinational corporate hegemony which is
incompatible with human rights, decentralized community, creativity, and
a sustainable environment.